


make of the moment a topiary

by mimizans



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Pre-Relationship, dinner date, talking about them feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-16 02:53:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12334008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimizans/pseuds/mimizans
Summary: Lup sends a cheerful wave over her shoulder, and Barry smiles as he enters his room and closes the door behind him. It’s only as the door clicks shut that Barry’s brow creases in confusion. “Holy shit,” he says. “Are we going on a date?”





	make of the moment a topiary

**Author's Note:**

> my brain: hey sarah is pre-relationship fluff gonna be your blupjeans calling card or do you wanna write something where lup and barry are actually together?
> 
> me: [timbaland voice] nope
> 
> my brain: [nelly furtado voice] didn’t think so

“Hey Barry,” Lup says as she hoists herself onto the table, and Barry nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Whoa, easy tiger,” Lup laughs, and her voice still seems too loud for the quiet of the library. She places a gentle hand on Barry’s shoulder, trying to calm him. “Didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”

Now that he’s dragged his eyes away from the weathered manuscript he’d been poring over, Barry realizes that it’s late. The ship’s library is always quiet (it’s Lucretia’s unofficial domain, and she implements a strict “no funny business” policy that came about as a result of Magnus and Lup’s ill-advised chair-racing derby that nearly knocked out entire bookcases, much to Lucretia’s abject terror), but now it’s empty even of the distant sounds of his crewmates clattering around in other parts of the ship. The automatic dimmers must’ve clicked on earlier, which explains why his eyes hurt. Reading tiny text in low light will do that to you.

“You’ve got those quiet elf feet,” Barry says, dropping his glasses on the table and rubbing at his eyes. His heart rate is still a little elevated, although whether that’s from Lup’s unexpected entrance or her hand on his shoulder is up for debate.

Lup plucks Barry’s glasses from the table and puts them on. The frames are too big for her fine features and the glasses threaten to slide off the end of her nose. She crosses her eyes, an unspoken jab about Barry’s poor eyesight that he can barely even see to be mock-offended by. It’s an old line of teasing, anyway.

“My quiet feet are an evolutionary advantage, Barold,” Lup says, tucking her hair behind her ear. “They help me sneak up on my prey.” She wiggles her fingers at him menacingly.

“That sounds right,” Barry says with a nod, reaching up and gently removing his glasses from her face. “Not at all like a thing you made up just now.”

“I wouldn’t let on even if that weren’t the absolute truth, which it is,” Lup says. “It would ruin my reputation as an Interdimensional Woman of Mystery. Anyway,” she adds, “my wonderful evolutionary advantages notwithstanding, I don’t recall humans having evolved beyond the need for sleep.”

“Joke’s on you,” Barry replies as he pushes his glasses back onto his nose, “because I am a new breed of human that needs only air, water, and library dust to live.”

“What a thrilling discovery,” Lup says with a grin. “We’ll put you through a battery of very invasive tests later. Right now, it’s time for bed.”

Barry stretches his arms over his head and feels his spine crack. He grimaces. “What kind of state of mental disrepair have I fallen into that _you_ are reminding me to go to bed?”

“As I’ve already explained, I’m a more evolved form of life,” Lup says with a shrug.

Barry smiles warmly at her as he rises from his chair. “What would I do without you?”

“Live in here like some kind of nerd gremlin, I assume,” Lup says, slipping her arm around his shoulder. Barry doesn’t hesitate to wrap his arm around her waist in return. “Let’s get you to bed, my man.”

They walk down the corridors to Barry’s bedroom in comfortable silence, arms around each other. When they reach his door and Barry reaches down to open it, his arm still around Lup’s waist, she clears her throat. “Hmm?” he hums, looking towards her.

“You’re not busy tomorrow night, right?” Lup asks. The guidance lights on the floor shine upward, giving her already beautiful face an otherworldly glow. Barry gets so distracted by the play of light and shadow on her cheekbones that it takes him a moment to parse her question.

“Uh, no, I’m not,” he says, turning to face her. “Why?”

“Well,” Lup says hesitantly, and if Barry didn’t know better he would say she looks nervous. “There’s this great restaurant that Taako and I found and I thought you might like it too.”

“Oh, yeah,” Barry says, nodding perhaps more vigorously than he needs to. “I’d love to go out with you.” Lup grins even as Barry grimaces. “I mean, uh, it would be great to go to the restaurant with you.”

“Cool,” Lup says, and her smile is brighter than any light on the ship. She reaches out and flicks Barry’s ear lightly. He assumes it’s to keep some kind of karmic balance intact, so he doesn’t protest. Lup’s smile for an ear flick. He’ll gladly take that trade any day. “See you tomorrow. Get some sleep, Barry.”

“Yeah, I will,” he replies, watching as she turns to walk down the hallway towards her room. “Goodnight, Lup.”

She sends a cheerful wave over her shoulder, and Barry smiles as he enters his room and closes the door behind him. It’s only as the door clicks shut that Barry’s brow creases in confusion. “Holy shit,” he says. “Are we going on a date?”

-

It’s not a date, Barry assures himself. It would be abundantly clear if it were a date. Barry has been on dates before, and during each one he was very sure that he was, in fact, on a date. Barry knows that there are all sorts of signposts to indicate when you’re on a date, and he’s positive that this outing with Lup doesn’t qualify.

Except that it kind of does. 

He and Lup put on nice clothes. He compliments her on her dress and she unfucks his shirt collar, a private smile on her face that Barry hopes is meant just for him. She’s lovely, as always. Part of it is the preternatural beauty that comes with being an elf, but Barry is also convinced that she’s the single most beautiful being he’s ever seen - even more beautiful than her identical twin. Barry knows, logically, that this doesn’t make any sense; Taako and Lup have the same face, so if Lup is the most beautiful being in the universe then so is Taako. He can’t get his brain to process this truth, though. Barry chalks it up to being in love with one and not the other. 

They go into Tesseralia’s downtown, to a place that looks like a hole in the wall on the outside but is filled with small marble-topped table and lit with fairy lights that hover close to the ceiling, casting everything with a romantic glow. They talk the whole way, laughing too loudly but not caring. They walk close enough together than their hands keep brushing, but neither of them thinks to step away. 

Inside the restaurant, they’re seated at a two-top by the back wall. Lup commandeers the wine list and orders a bottle without looking at it. Barry peruses the menu and asks a dozen questions that he only barely understands about flavor profiles and mouthfeel; Lup humors him and answers them like he’s getting anything out of her words except the joy of listening to her talk about something she loves. 

They eat their meals and and drink their wine, and by the time dessert rolls around they’ve moved so far forward in their seats that their knees are almost touching underneath the table. Barry is comfortably full and the slightest bit tipsy, and Lup is smiling at him as he tells the story of how he was robbed of first prize at his middle school science fair. The fairy lights cast a halo on her head, and Barry isn’t sure how he’s going to convince himself that this isn’t a date. He wants it to be. He wonders if Lup does too. Is he massively misreading this situation? He should just ask her. Clear the air, may sure they’re on the same wavelength. That would be the adult thing to do, and he’s going on... what, 55 now? 60? He can do this. He can ask this person, his friend about whom he cares deeply, a question. Sure, he might ruin everything by asking about it - might break whatever spell is holding this night together - but maybe it's important to understand what's happening. Barry knows himself well enough to know that a very specific combination of factors - the wine, the atmosphere, the internal monologue he’s been running since the night before - are coming together to allow him to open his big, dumb mouth and ask this four-word question, and that he needs to get those words out before he talks himself out of it. So he inhales and takes the plunge. 

“Is this a date?” Barry asks. 

Lup nearly spits out her wine and ends up gagging on it instead. It takes her a moment to gather herself enough to reply, and she wipes at the red-stained corners of her mouth in the meantime. “I wasn’t expecting that question,” she says through a series of small, wet coughs, clutching the stem of her wine glass.

Barry chuckles dryly. “Obviously,” he says, pushing her untouched glass of water towards her.

She ignores it, and takes a careful sip of her wine instead, savoring it in her mouth before she carefully swallows. “Well, no, let me rephrase," she says, holding up a finger. "I wasn’t expecting you to just come out and ask it. I thought you be wondering, though.”

“Ah,” Barry says. He runs a gentle finger down the length of his dessert spoon. “Any contingencies for if I did decide to ask?”

Lup laughs. “None,” she says with a decisive shake of her head. “You know me. I’m a take-my-chances, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of girl.”

“Yes, I do know you,” Barry replies, smiling at her, and when she smiles back Barry’s anxiety about ruining... well, _everything_ , all but melts away.

Lup finally sets her wine glass down on the table, the glass clinking pleasantly against the marble top. “To be honest," she says, "I didn’t want to plan for the possibility of you asking because I hoped you wouldn't. I honestly don't have answer for you, and that sucks.” She pauses and licks her lips nervously. "For both of us," she clarifies.

Barry scratches at the back of his neck. “Do you... want it to be a date?” he asks.

Lup huffs. She'd seemed nervous when she asked him to go out tonight. Now she seems a little frustrated, but Barry doesn't think it's with him. “Maybe,” she says, and Barry's heart skips a beat even with that small victory. “I really care about you. Like, I care about everyone on the crew, you know, but you’re... special.”

“That’s, um,” Barry says, feeling his face and throat flush. “That’s nice to hear. You’re special to me too.”

“Cool,” Lup says, her smile widening. _She's the most beautiful thing in the world_ , Barry thinks dreamily for the fifteenth time today. Lup kicks him gently under the table.

“So why ‘maybe’?” Barry asks. “Do you not want...?”

Lup’s foot comes to rest alongside Barry’s. “I don’t know _what_ I want. That’s part of the problem,” she says with a sigh. “I want something from you, Barry, but I don’t know what. I don’t know how to name it or quantify it, and that’s, uh, an uncomfortable feeling for me. I enjoy certainty in my desires.” 

“I can understand that,” Barry says, tapping her foot lightly with his own. “I think I’m more certain than you in this particular instance, though.” "Oh?" Lup asks. Barry takes a deep breath. “I’d, uh, I’d give you whatever you wanted.”

It’s a big admission, and he knows that Lup understands because she leans backwards in her chair a little, her eyes locked with his. “Oh,” she says. “Well.”

There’s a long moment of silence before Barry echoes her. “Well?”

“Well, that definitely was a thing you just said,” Lup finally proclaims, leaning back towards the table. She reaches across the space between them and takes Barry’s hand in her own. “And can I just tell you, Barry? I dig it. It was a cool and romantic thing to say and I am deeply into it.” Lup brings his hand to her mouth and kisses his knuckles softly. Barry feels like every nerve his hand is tingling.

“Good,” Barry says. “Great.”

“Great,” Lup agrees. She lowers their hands back to the table, still joined. “So, now that we know what pages we’re on, respectively, do you mind if we take this slow?" She closes her eyes for a moment, her lashes casting soft shadows against her cheek. "I have fucked up some relationships in my lifetime and I would sincerely love not to fuck up this one.”

“We have time, I think,” Barry says. “We’ve had a few decades to dance around each other already.”

“So what’s a few more?” Lup teases.

What Barry thinks is, _I’d wait for you forever_ \- but that seems melodramatic, even for him, so instead he says, “Exactly. We’ll take it slow, and we’ll go out on maybe-dates, and we’ll figure it out. We’re worth that, I think.”

Lup nods. She squeezes his hand a little bit tighter. “What we could have is worth that.”

Barry smiles at her, and she grins back. “We have _got_ to stop playing footsie underneath this table though,” Lup says in a conspiratorial whisper, and Barry is startled into loud laughter that makes other patrons look up from their meals. “I’m getting physically ill from how sappy it is, and I’m a party to it,” Lup continues, smug after the unexpected laugh she drew from Barry.

“So you know it’s bad,” Barry says, laughter still clinging to his face.

“Exactly,” Lup says, and draws her foot away from his - but not before one final, deliberate caress that she punctuates with a wink. She doesn’t let go of his hand for a long time, though.

Yeah, Barry thinks. They’ve got time.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from the poem ["flirtation" by rita dove](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/35278/flirtation)
> 
> probably no update on my ongoing piece this week. school got the better of me! but i wanted to post something, so here we are. comment if you have some time, i love to read and respond to all of them! come find me on tumblr @popularflipwizard if you'd like ♥


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